The morning after Shisui's death broke cold. The sky over Konoha was covered by a thick blanket of gray clouds, and the atmospheric pressure felt physically denser. The streets, normally noisy with morning commerce, were drowned in a cautious whisper.
In the Haruno family sushi shop, Matsuri was wiping down the counter with a damp cloth. His persona of a diligent young boy was intact, but his ears caught every whisper in the restaurant.
Two Jōnin were sitting in the darkest corner of the establishment, sipping tea and speaking in tones that were not meant for civilian ears. But Matsuri's Nature Breathing amplified his perception.
"...in the Naka River. The current almost carried him past the borders," whispered the Jōnin with the scar on his chin. "The official report says suicide. There was a note."
"Shunshin no Shisui? Suicide? Don't make me laugh. The Military Police are going wild. They think it was murder."
Matsuri stopped wiping. The cloth slipped from his fingers, hitting the floor with a soft thud.
His breathing hitched. He knew this was going to happen. From the day he woke up in this world and realized which timeline he was in, Shisui's death was a fixed point, an indisputable fact written in the annals of history he knew so well.
But theory was a cruel lie. "Anime knowledge" provided no filter against real pain. The fact that he knew Shisui would die didn't lessen the impact of losing the only person who laughed at his childhood sarcasm—the mentor who spent late nights teaching him not to trip over his own feet. Shisui was no longer just a character on a TV screen; he was the guy who ruffled his pink hair and believed a masked civilian could make a difference. And now, he was dead.
An icy grip squeezed Matsuri's throat. He closed his eyes, pulling air in with brutal force, forcing oxygen into the bottom of his lungs, stabilizing the heartbeat that threatened to panic. Inhale... stabilize the core... exhale. He couldn't break down here.
At the Academy, the atmosphere was funereal. Iruka was visibly tense, checking the window every five minutes as if expecting a war to break out in the courtyard at any moment.
When the door slid open, the silence in the room became absolute.
Sasuke Uchiha walked in. He looked like he had aged five years in a single night. There were dark circles under his pitch-black eyes; his posture, previously proud and upright, was now defensive and hunched. His fists were clenched so hard they trembled. Grief was devouring him, fed by the toxic paranoia of his clan, which now openly suspected his own brother, Itachi.
The other children watched him as if he were a wounded and dangerous animal. Sakura looked like she wanted to say something, Ino lowered her head, and even Shikamaru frowned, uncomfortable. Nobody dared to approach.
During the practical break in the courtyard, Sasuke isolated himself in the furthest corner. He attacked one of the training logs with blind violence, delivering punches and kicks with brute force. It was a pathetic technical display by Uchiha standards; he wasn't training—he was punishing himself. His knuckles were already scraped and bleeding.
Matsuri observed the scene from afar. Shisui's final words echoed in his mind: He will need rivals who don't pity him... Someone to pull him back down to reality.
Without making a scene, Matsuri walked over. He stopped a few feet from the log, hands in his pockets, the dark mask covering half his face.
"Your form is terrible," Matsuri's voice cut through the sound of the strikes. "You're hitting with your shoulder instead of your hip. At this rate, you'll just dislocate your own collarbone before class ends."
Sasuke stopped, panting. He turned his head slowly, his black eyes burning with blind, irrational hatred. The Uchiha didn't want advice; he wanted a target.
"Shut up," Sasuke growled, his voice raspy. "You don't know anything. Stay away from me."
"I know that hitting a piece of wood while crying doesn't honor anyone's name," Matsuri countered clinically, keeping his tone icy, refusing to offer an ounce of pity. "If you want to vent your childish frustration, do it against something that can fight back."
It was the perfect trigger. With a roar of fury, Sasuke abandoned the log and lunged at Matsuri.
The right hook came fast, loaded with pure rage. But Matsuri didn't step back. The invisible layer of chakra was already stabilized on the soles of his feet. Micro-Shunshin. Using inertia, Matsuri slid his heel millimeters to the left, spinning his axis. Sasuke's fist grazed his ear, hitting thin air.
Sasuke growled and followed up with a low kick, followed by an elbow strike. Matsuri flowed through the strikes like water around rocks. He didn't attack. He didn't throw a single punch or kick. Using his Interception Style, Matsuri merely redirected Sasuke's kinetic momentum, resting a hand lightly on the Uchiha's wrist or shoulder to deflect the impact and make him trip over his own weight.
Sasuke's fury blinded him, burning through his oxygen and stamina at an absurd rate. Three minutes of erratic attacks later, the Uchiha's body gave out. He stumbled after a frustrated left uppercut and fell to his knees on the grass, his chest heaving violently, sweat dripping from his chin. The rage had run dry, leaving only the crushing exhaustion of grief.
Matsuri stood in front of him, his breathing perfectly controlled. He looked down at the defeated Uchiha heir on the ground. No sweet words of comfort were spoken, no cliché speeches about friendship. Matsuri simply extended a hand to help him up.
Sasuke stared at the civilian's gloved hand. For a second, hesitation took hold. But for the first time that day, the Uchiha boy felt grounded back to reality. He grabbed Matsuri's hand and pulled himself to his feet. A silent anchor.
Later, at the exit of the Academy, the true fracture of the clan exposed itself.
Matsuri and Sasuke were walking near the gates when shouting caught their attention. On the main street, three officers from the Uchiha Military Police—Inabi, Yashiro, and Tekka—were surrounding Itachi. Their tone was accusatory and hostile.
The canonical scene unfolded like a live nightmare. In the blink of an eye, Itachi knocked down all three elite officers, pinning them to the ground with brutal coldness. The look Itachi cast upon his own clan members was empty, dead. Fugaku's intervention prevented blood from being spilled right then and there, but the damage was done.
Sasuke stood paralyzed next to Matsuri, terrified to see his loving brother transformed into a cold stranger.
Matsuri, however, watched everything with fists clenched inside his pockets. That look from Itachi... wasn't just anger. It was the resignation of a man who had accepted his fate as the executioner. The clock had stopped. There was no more room for theories or hopes of peace.
A few days passed, dissolving into a haze of unsustainable tension.
Night fell over Konoha. In the backyard of his house, Matsuri sat in the lotus position, eyes closed. He was training the circulation of chakra in the soles of his feet, keeping the flow stable while synchronizing his heartbeat with Nature Breathing.
Suddenly, the night wind shifted direction.
Matsuri opened his eyes. The cricket chirping near the wall fell silent. The night birds stopped singing. A dense, metallic, sickening smell began drifting on the breeze, creeping through the streets like a ghost river.
The smell of blood.
He looked east, beyond the walls of the Uchiha Compound. There were no screams. There were no alarms. There was only an absolute, unnatural, and deadly silence covering the complex under the crimson light of the moon.
The bloodbath had begun.
[Author's Note] Hello everyone, I hope you are enjoying Matsuri's journey! Writing and planning each chapter takes a lot of time, dedication, and effort (even more so dealing with hand pain from the keyboard!). If you like my work, believe in the potential of this story, and want to encourage me to keep posting frequently, please consider supporting me with any amount. Every bit of help makes a huge difference and motivates me a lot! ☕ To support (PIX[Mercado Pago] or PayPal): [email protected] Thank you so much for reading, commenting, and for all the support! ❤️